


HeartLink

by KalicoFox



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: And the Holts, Familial Relationships, Found Family, Gen, Psychic AU, They're gonna rescue the hell out of Shiro, Time Travel AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 20:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9564947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KalicoFox/pseuds/KalicoFox
Summary: Something happened, and now it looks like they're in the past. Pidge isn't convinced, but hey, Shiro's missing, the others are on 'Earth' with her, and she still needs to rescue her family. Time to get to work.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was leery of writing anything in the Voltron fandom, partially because I don't write romance, and partly because compared to homestuck there's just SO LITTLE character interaction for me to study. But, this idea wouldn't leave me alone, so here it is.

Waking up to the sound of quiet sobbing was something she’d dreamed before, and she never could bring herself to respond differently.

It was always the same. Wake up. Hear her mother crying downstairs. Go to see what’s wrong.

Find out that Dad and Matt and Shiro are missing, presumed dead, and that they’re saying it’s Shiro’s fault.

Feel her heart shatter.

Wake up.

Only this time, there is no waking up. She’s still there, standing on the stairs, watching as the newscaster talks about her family in the past tense, as her mother tries to stifle her sobs against one of the couch pillows.

Mechanically, Pidge turns and walks lightly back up the stairs.

Only she’s not Pidge yet, is she? Is she still Katie? Is it ‘yet’ and 'still’ if it’s just a dream? Should she call herself some amalgamation between the two? A mixture of who she is and who she was?

She doesn’t know. She can’t think around the ice in her chest; the feeling of family gone and lost and possibly never to be found.

Heat flares in the back of her mind, chasing the icy cold away even as a tidal wave rushes over her, sweeping away the creeping ice that would have her following in her own footsteps.

“ _We’re here.”_ Hunk tells her, his mental voice holding her up; giving her a foundation she can sit on and try to rebuild herself.

“ _We are here.”_ Keith’s voice is wrecked, crackling with helpless fury and Lance washes against him, putting out the fires of self loathing before they can burn him.

“ _We’re here, Pidge.”_ He reassures her, then, in typical Lance fashion, adds, “ _Wherever the hell 'here’ is. Did we get a holodeck and nobody told me?”_

Pidge snorts a helpless laugh, then coughs and looks around for a something to blow her nose in.

“ _I don’t think so.”_ she says, reaching out with the 'other’ sense that Green woke up in her.  “ _I think I’m actually at home.”_

Just because it’s fun to feel the others cringe, she blows her nose hard, transmitting the feelings through the bond.

True to form, three nearly synchronous cringes hit her at once, the wordless disgust making her grin as she tossed the already dirty, now unwearable, shirt toward her laundry pile.

“ _How are you even a girl?”_ Lance demanded, “ _That’s so gross!”_

Pidge’s grin widens as she contemplated the opening Lance had left her. “ _Well, there’s thi-”_ she starts, and gets mentally dog piled as Hunk and Keith figure out where she’s going.

“ _NOPE!”_ Hunk declares loudly, and Keith says “ _So what’s the plan?”_ at the same time, and it ends up being a tangle of mental impressions that was as weird and glorious as any of the weird mix-ups at the very beginning had been.

“ _That was a good one.”_ Pidge says thoughtfully, once she’d stopped tasting maroon velvet.

“ _I liked the metalic-symphony one better.”_ Hunk says, and Pidge gets a feeling like smacking lips and a thoughtful frown.

“ _My favorite was the cotton candy-lightning strike.”_ Lance says, and Keith just sends something that feels vaguely reminiscent of sticking their fingers in a light socket and getting a mouthful of ghost pepper at the same time.

Pidge shudders and adds her mental glare to the two already directed toward Keith.

“ _Anyway,”_ Keith says, ignoring their displeasure with practiced ease, “ _What’s the plan?”_

“ _First off is figuring out what the hell’s going on.”_ Pidge says firmly, “ _because there’s no way that we’re actually in the past.”_

“ _Why not?”_ Hunk asks, and Pidge flicks through several theories that prove time travel is impossible, followed by a couple more feelings that sum up to 'because the universe couldn’t possibly be that cruel’ and ends with “ _Because we’re still talking to each other like this, and we hadn’t even bonded to the Lions yet, so we can’t possibly be in the past.”_

“ _But Allura and Coran got stuck in a time loop that one time,”_ Lance protested, flinging the memory of Allura telling them about teenager Coran down the link like he was slapping it onto a table.

“ _And I got stuck a couple days in the past once,”_ Keith interjected, and Pidge scowled.

“ _Yeah, but those were both wormhole problems! We weren’t portalling anywhere last time I checked, and that still doesn’t solve the whole 'we shouldn’t even be connected to the lions yet’ thing!”_

“ _Blue is in her cave.”_ Lance announced, “ _And I would just like to take this moment to be really freaking happy that my lion is on the same planet as me. You poor schmucks still gotta go get yours.”_

“ _Wait.”_ the intensity of Keith’s command made Pidge freeze. “ _The Kerberos mission was on the news?”_ He asked, and Pidge nodded.  
“ _So the Galra ship that took him is still in the system, right?”_

Pidge frowned, “ _Maybe? But Keith, seriously, we can’t be in the past, it doesn’t make any sense!”_

“ _And we might not be, but for now, we might as well act like we are. Shiro isn’t in range to talk to us, so our first priority is getting him in range, and getting him back if we can. The second priority is getting our lions, and finding Allura, Coran, and the Castle.”_ Keith paused for a second, faltering slightly, then pulled himself together. “ _Right now it doesn’t matter if we’re in the past or not. We’re separated, and our lions are missing. Those are the things we need to fix. So let’s fix them.”_

For a moment the link was silent, then Pidge sighed, running her hand through (too long, how weird) hair and gazing up at the ceiling as though it would grant her more patience. “ _Fine. I can be enrolled in the Garrison in a couple of weeks. I’ll meet you all there. Keith, don’t you dare get kicked out this time.”_

“ _Wait what?!”_ Lance yelped, and Hunk echoed him, waves of shock reverberating through their side of the psychic bond the Paladins shared.

“ _In the mean time,”_ she continued, talking over Lance easily, “ _You three need to meet up with Blue and Reach for Shiro. Blue should be able to boost your range to the edge of the solar system, and the additional Paladins should be able to get you at least a little bit past there. If Shiro and my family are still in system, then come get me and we’ll go rescue them. Blue should be more than capable of taking out a single ship on her own, but you’ll need me to block any signal from getting out. If Zarkon finds out that even a single lion is active, it’ll start all that shit over again.”_

Amused admiration radiated from Keith’s mental presence, and Pidge scowled.

“ _Oh what,”_ she demanded out loud, “ _Like you’ve never seen me make a plan before?”_

“ _Oh no,”_ Keith demurred, “ _It’s not that. It’s them.”_ and he directed her attention to Lance and Hunk.

Lance was radiating bewildered astonishment, and Hunk was obviously trying not to laugh at him.

“ _What?!”_ She demanded sharply, and Lance jolted out of his surprised stupor.

“ _Nothing!”_ He yelped, “ _I just sometimes forget what genius means, and then you’ll do something like that”_ he broadcasts a memory of ideas and feelings and thoughts coming together faster than he can register until Pidge recognizes her own voice narrating the plan, “ _and I remember. It’s badass.”_

Pidge flushes, ducking her head. “ _Right. Anyway. Any objections?”_

Three negatives hit her in quick succession, and she nods, already turning back toward her other sense and reaching for her computer with her mind. Hacking the Garrison and adding a student wasn’t that hard, but hacking every other necessary government database to give herself a legitimate seeming alternate identity would take a little while.

“ _You know, I thought I was supposed to be the leader of Voltron when Shiro’s… away.”_ Keith whispers to her, and she snorts, sifting mentally through lines of code and piles of data.

“ _You are. But a good leader knows to listen to their subordinates, and both of us know that when it comes to plans you’re a little too gung-ho to be left to your own devices.”_

“ _Says the one who gets so single minded she forgets to sleep?”_ Keith asks, his tone light, and Pidge flicks him with her mind.

“ _I can and will make it so that your lights don’t turn off, ever.”_ She warns, and feels him retreat, his mental presence crackling with sparks like laughter.

  


It took them a couple of hours to come back, and Pidge was so lost in the maze of code and data that was trying to keep her from creating herself that she almost didn’t notice the strained prodding coming from the boys until Hunk shouted, his mindvoice sounding almost like the feel of rock crumbling underfoot, and she jolted out of the green-tinged technopathic haze.

“ _We got him.”_ Keith said, and he felt like a flickering candle in a too strong breeze.

“ _Only for a couple of minutes,”_ Lance confirmed, “ _but we got him, and we know where they’re going.”_

“ _Sort of.”_ Hunk said, his voice tired, like he’d tried to argue against them before and lost. “ _We have a vague direction, with no idea about how fast they’re going.”_

“ _Are you getting Blue?”_ Pidge asked, “ _You’re going after them, right?”_

“ _Shiro said not to.”_ Keith said quietly, and Pidge simmered.

“ _We aren’t listening to him, right? Tell me we aren’t going to listen to him.”_

“ _Of course not!”_ Keith exploded, then abruptly settled, guilt rolling off of him in waves. “ _But we can’t go after him directly, either. Not with only one lion.”_

Pidge’s mind raced, ideas and counter ideas and ways to beat _those_ ideas racing through her mind almost faster than she could think.

Keith obviously wanted to get the rest of the lions. That was fine; that was good, even. The bond each of them had with their respective lion would lead them straight to their resting places. The only problem would be avoiding the Castle of Lions until after they had Shiro, or else Allura might just try to pilot Black herself. And as driven and self sacrificing and great as Allura was, she wasn’t Shiro. There’d be way less chance of them forming Voltron with her as the leader.

“ _Can we do that?”_ Lance asked, obviously having caught at least part of her train of thought, “ _Avoid Allura and the castle, I mean. Don’t we need the castle to be able to wormhole?”_

“ _No,”_ Hunk said, and showed them a flash of memory, “ _Blue wormholed us before, remember? When she kidnapped us the first time?”_

“ _She didn’t kidnap us!”_ Lance jumped to his lion’s defense, “ _It was just a field trip! That she took us on! Without asking. And didn’t bring us back… Um. Shit.”_

Pidge cackled at Lance’s sudden discomfiture, sending agreement to Hunk. “ _Blue did, but that doesn’t mean that the others can. We’d all have to ride with Lance and Blue to find our lions.”_

“ _I’m fine with that.”_ Keith said, and Lance snickered at him.

“ _Yeah, but you won’t even have to go looking for Red. We just need to get you within the same star system and Momma Cat’s gonna come busting out of wherever she is just to check you over for new bruises!”_

Burning logs broke, and Keith’s mental presence shot out, shoving Lance’s mind sideways so that his senses scrambled and for a brief moment his feeling of outrage was heavily tinged with the scent of spaghetti sauce.

Pidge fell over sideways, muffling her laughter with her pillow so that her mom wouldn’t have to come up to try to figure out what was going on.

“ _So I’m not going to be enrolling in GG, then.”_ She said, and reached out to wipe the last half hour of work out of existence. “ _You’ll have to pick me up. Do we know which lion we’re going for first?”_

“ _Yours,”_ Keith said firmly, “ _You said that you didn’t have any trouble getting her, and that the planet was peaceful?”_

“ _Um, yeah.”_ Pidge said, stunned, and got what felt like a firm nod back.

“ _Then we’re heading for her first.”_

“ _Yeah, I’ll need some serious back up to get to Yellow,”_ Hunk agreed, and Lance howled in protest.  
“ _Hey! I thought I did really good covering for you last time!”_

“ _And yet, we still both almost died!”_ Hunk shot back, and Pidge rolled her eyes, reaching out to find the best coordinates for a pick up within walking distance and then sending them to Keith, who memorized them with a wry feeling and a whispered guarantee that they’d be by to get her soon.

That little chore taken care of, Pidge was left with a dilemma. It was ten thirty at night on a Tuesday, she supposedly had school the next day, and she absolutely refused to spend any more time in space without her energy drinks than she already had.

And so, Pidge found herself sneaking out of her house to do the last thing she ever thought she’d be sneaking out of her house to do.

She was going shopping.

 

 

When Blue came soaring down out of the sky to land lightly in the middle of the (unfinished) housing development, Pidge grinned, relief making her weak at the knees.

She’d known they were coming. Keith had kept up a running commentary in the back of her mind, murmuring directives to the others as they snuck out, and directing curses at overly curious desert critters as Lance led them unerringly towards his lion.

“Hey there, Blue.” She murmured, smiling up at her, and felt the echo of a rumbling purr through Lance’s bond to his lion.

“ _Hurry up,”_ Keith said tersely, “ _I want to be out of here as fast as possible. I’m pretty sure that Blue’ll show up on air traffic radar.”_

That thought spurred them into action; Lance urging Blue down into a position that Pidge could embark, and Pidge trying to get all of her bags out of the grocery cart she’d stolen.

“ _One of you come help me with this!”_ She snapped as Blue’s mouth gaped and the airlock hissed open.

Hurried footsteps sounded on metal, and Hunk and Keith both clomped down the gangplank, hurrying over to her and grabbing as many bags as they could carry before turning on their heels and striding back.

“What the hell did you buy?” Keith demanded, trying to see the labels on the bulky boxes in the bags he’d grabbed.

“None of your business,” Pidge grunted, hefting the case of Monster she’d stashed beneath the cart.

“Pidge, I swear to god, if you got more of those dis-” Keith cut off as he entered Blue’s cockpit and the light revealed the label.

A flash of confusion, quickly followed by smothered embarrassment flickered through the link, and Lance swiveled around in his seat, trying to see what Keith had spotted.

“Pidge!” Keith hissed, “You’re like, _twelve!_ Why-?”

“Excuse you,” Pidge snapped, thumping the case of Monster to the floor a bit harder than she should have, and wincing when Lance jolted her with indignation, “but I’m fourteen. And sometime within the next year I’m gonna need those. I refuse to use the ridiculous diaper thing that was all Allura had on hand.”

Hunk paled, then carefully set down the bags he was holding and faded back towards one of the only corners in the cockpit, humming in his mind as though he'd be able to block out the realization of what was in the many, many pastel colored boxes.

Lance, on the other hand, made a noise of sudden realization, scoffed, and turned back to face the front.

“Was that all?” He asked scornfully, “Jeeze, I thought she’d brought something _interesting_. Like a dog or something.”

“That is _such_ a good idea,” Pidge lit up, grinning widely and turning on her heel to head back down the gangplank.

Keith reached out in a practiced motion and snagged the back of her shirt instead. “No.”

“Bu-”

“ _Pidge_. No.”

“Fine.” Pidge sulked, and turned toward kicking her stuff back into a pile with the dufflebags the boys had tossed into a pile out of the way.

“Are we good?” Lance demanded, craning his neck to look back at them, “Can we go now? I think I hear sirens, and it’s making me nervous.”

“Yeah, go. Let’s get out of here, fast. Blue knows where we’re going?” Keith asked, and Lance grinned.

“Off planet, first, and then Pidgey is gonna have to feed me the directions.”

There was barely any movement as Blue shifted, closing the airlock and gathering her legs beneath her, but the shifting skyline on the viewports showed the movement, and the sudden pressure forcing Pidge to grab onto Hunk to stay upright told her that they’d taken off.

The sudden rush of nausea from Hunk might have also been a clue, and Pidge patted his back sympathetically even as she moved out of the potential line of fire.

Carefully she reached out with her mind, searching for the bright spot in the cosmos that was Shiro, and stretching toward him. With her fellow paladins around her, and with a Lion adding its strength to her own she could find him, barely. Her mental voice fell far short, but she could still project _love and support and be strong we’re coming you won’t be alone for long_ towards him and hope that he’d feel at least some of it.

The weak rush of _love returned and hope and resignation to idiocy_ that washed over her made her grin, her eyes watering from the sheer force of her relief as she turned her attention toward a different part of her mind. The green tinted part that was hers alone and grumbled with fake irritation at being checked in with last.

Rolling her eyes, Pidge soothed Green, pouring love and affection over the lion until she was purring and content and willing to actually cooperate with her paladin. Which is about when Pidge realized that Green knew about whatever the hell it was that was going on.

And was still going to make her come get her, rather than flying out to meet her.

When Pidge demanded to know why, all she got was the robot equivalent of a yawn and something to the effect of ‘because I don’t want to fly that far just now.’

“Cats.” She growled out loud, and when the others sent her questioning looks filled them in.

Lance burst out laughing, doubling over his controls as he cackled at her misfortune at just the right time to dodge the swipe she aimed at the back of his head. Pidge grumbled at him, tossing him a mental line that led toward Green in a vague 'thataway’ direction and nudging at Blue through Lance to get her attention, since Lance was too preoccupied to do much of anything.

“Wait, does that mean I might be able to get Yellow to meet us?” Hunk asked, perking up and, without waiting for an answer from any of the paladins (who probably had no idea anyway), reached down his bond for Yellow.

Pidge felt Keith do the same towards Red as a wormhole blazed to life in front of them and Lance urged Blue through, and hoped that at least one of the lions would be accommodating enough to come to them rather than the other way around. She really, really didn’t want to have to go traipsing around half the known universe just to get their damn lions so that they could rescue their idiot leader and her family.

“Red can’t.” Keith murmured, still halfway down his bond, “She’s on Sendak’s ship already.”

“Yellow can’t either. There’s too many Galra in sensor range. She wouldn’t be able to get off planet without being captured.” Hunk reported, and Pidge sighed as Lance swore.

“Of course. That’d make things too easy, wouldn’t it.” Lance tightened his grip on Blue’s controls, then sighed, let go, and leaned back, letting Blue pilot herself for a while as they exited the wormhole and headed towards the verdant planet nearby.

 

 


End file.
